The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today published the list of 1,930 applications received for general top-level domains (gTLDs). Among the Indian applications, Directi, the Mumbai-based registrar of domain names, has applied for 31 strings of gTLDs such as .loans, .hotel, .bank, .baby and .press, among others. Also, 21 domain name suffixes have been applied for by Indian companies, including .tata, .sbi, .reliance and .lupin, among others.

Anirudh Kumar, senior manager-strategy, Directi, said they were one of the largest companies from Asia to have made 30+ applications. Contention sets would be announced soon, where two firms applying for the same domain name suffix would be put in one set. Kumar explained since ICANN had announced they would not be able to process more than 500 applications a year, batches of the applications would be announced by July. This would be followed by an evaluation process that could take between nine months to 20 months for completion. Directi has committed $30 million (Rs 170 crore) for this application alone.

What this means is that any established public or private organisation anywhere in the world can apply to create and operate a new gTLD registry. For instance, if .Tata gets ICANN’s approval, all Tata Group companies can use .tata in their web address. If Directi gets the .hotel domain name, then it can work with hotels across the globe.

Domain names are divided into two segments—generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). The gTLD segment accounts for domain names like .com, .net, .org, and .info, while ccTLDs are country-specific like .in (India), .de (Germany) and .uk (UK).